Ellen DeGeneres is leading a fundamental change in the way we buy clothing

Ellen DeGeneres's clothing line, ED, is notable —
and not just because it's another fashion line by a celebrity.

The line offers clothing with gender neutral lines for women,
highlighting the notion that being a girl is not analogous with
dressing girly.

DeGeneres's collaboration with GapKids, GapKids x ED, with the
corresponding hashtag "#heyworld," launched earlier this summer.
It zeroed in on giving girls the option to be who they want to
be, not what clothing stores dictate they should be. This was
very important to DeGeneres.

"When I was growing up I didn’t have a lot of choices, as
most kids don't," the comedian and businesswoman said to Mashable this summer, "It really starts
when you’re young. It starts when you’re able to express
yourself."

A video posted by GapKids (@gapkids) on Jul 14, 2015 at 6:21pm PDT on
Jul 14, 2015 at 6:21pm PDT

DeGeneres's clothing line has no dresses, but there are
tailored jackets, polos, and clean, neat lines.

Gender neutral clothing is becoming a critical niche in the
apparel industry, and the importance is twofold: one,
retailers are recognizing that women and men need not be confined
to traditional gender roles, and two, it shows that retailers are
responding to a society that is accepting of those with gender
fluidity.

Acne
Studios — the retailer that launched the short-sleeved suit for
men — has demonstrated androgyny as its hallmark.
In fact, in a recent ad, the company used a twelve year old boy
as a model. Not everybody responded positively to this.

"Acne confirms: fashion ideal woman is a 12-year-old boy," wrote
Leann Duggan of Yahoo Style, missing the point that the
campaign was about gender fluidity, not about telling women they
should look like little boys.

"Sometimes, you know in your heart of hearts that something
terrible is true. And yet, you still reserve the right to be
annoyed when it’s actually confirmed before your eyes," Duggan
wrote, proving that not everybody might be ready for a gender
fluid fashion landscape.

But non-gendered clothing isn't a new, groundbreaking
phenomeon. In fact, as Marc Bain of Quartz pointed out, it's been around for
centuries — even the ancient Romans wore gender neutral tunics!

Dr. Jo Paoletti told Bain that she believes the recent
surge in non-gendered clothing is "unfinished business from the
1970s."

"There were a lot of questions raised by feminism, the
Civil Rights movement, the gay rights movement about gender
roles, and the extent to which individuals should follow gender
roles," she said to Bain. "And part of that is going to be
the way you look."

It also helps that gender fluidity has been in pop
culture's vernacular as of late, especially with sports star
(and Kardashian patriarch) Caitlyn Jenner.

Caitlyn Jenner has brought the gender conversation to
the forefront of pop culture.VanityFair.com

Further, unisex clothing now has an elevated
meaning. Browsing Babies 'R' Us's selection of gender neutral
baby clothes evokes not only the notion of a budget-savvy family
awaiting a newborn, but a family that doesn't wish to impose a
gender upon its child. After all, gender is not mandated at
birth.

As society becomes more adjusted to the idea that gender is far
more fluid and that it can be expressed via clothing, the fashion
industry has responded. There are a number of smaller designers
and brands latching onto the unisex sector, and high fashion has
responded, too. Gucci showed offfeminine male designsthis summer at
Milan Fashion Week.

"That crossover was especially apparent in men’s
collections quietly venturing onto women’s turf, that move an
opportune nod to those progressive young urban women who have
long been among the most avid consumers of luxury men’s wear with
a funky street-wear provenance," La Ferla wrote.

"The whole perception of sexual orientation is being
challenged by the millennials,” Lucie Greene worldwide director
of JWT Intelligence, said to the Times. "Among the cohort of
12-to-19-year-olds defining Generation Z, ... the lines between
male and female have become increasingly blurred, and we’re
seeing that reflected in the collections this week [Milan Fashion
Week.]